spring forward

I heard someone ask on the radio one morning this week “how come the clock moves forward in the middle of the night on a Sunday instead of Friday at 4:00 PM”? That’s a tricky question. Wonder if they’d still want that fall back adjustment on Friday at 4:00 PM? If the powers to be decided to fall back on a Friday at 6:00 PM would everyone have to go back to work and enjoy two hours of sitting in traffic?

Here’s a thought…CAN WE JUST STAY ON ONE TIME ALL YEAR PLEASE!!!! Pick one. Pick standard or daylight savings and stick with it already. Can’t we mix in a little current day sensibility on the day light savings time issue. Who is saving daylight? Who? I want to know who is saving daylight.

This time change thing makes me all crabby and an hour late for a few days. Show me one person who thinks this time change twice a year makes any sense anymore. If you do find someone and point them out to me, you are banned from The Craftory for life okay. I’m not interested in diverse opinions or constructive criticism on the time topic. The world should simply yield to my opinion on this topic thank you. That’s all I have to say about that.

While spring time in Tomball brings newness, warmth, and green leaves, it also brings tree pollen.

In the spring we see seasonal price adjustments on window cleaner, allergy medicine, and tissue. Those supply and demand forces can work over a working person.

The skies can look a little ominous at times in the spring.

Those spring showers can be extra intense. Go ahead, say it like Gump…there’s cold stinging rain and big ole fat rain. Then the radio starts those emergency beeps and tones. It feels like maybe you should duck or something. A dry cave sounds pretty good when it gets like that in Texas. Looking out windows is not advised.

Just the right amount of spring rain at the peak of pine tree pollen season can come in handy though. A little pollen rinsing was nice to see on Tuesday and Wednesday.

We sold out of barbecue early on Wednesday. It was raining sideways at 11:00 am. By 1:00 PM our floors were dotted with puddles from the water dripping off the backs of some seriously dedicated barbecue eaters. Too busy to shoot a pic then. You get the idea.

Getting into The Craftory Thursday morning was a little tricky. There were some giant puddles on the roads. I remember hearing the rain around 2:30 am and looked forward to starting the fire in a few hours.

Starting fires with cold spring rain running down the back of your neck is a special time. There is a certain caveman satisfaction quality to beating rain with fire. It’s a must experience for you.

After the barbecue cooker was loaded and daybreak came, I discovered our front outdoor eating area had a new amenity.

Who doesn’t enjoy lakeside dining. At Tejas Chocolate we are always trying to improve the customer experience. Catch a crawdad and we’ll smoke it for you. Just another off menu item at The Craftory.

Speaking of off menu items and prime real estate there were some things that happened this week you might like to know about.

One such thing is stacked pinto beans.

Pinto Beans loaded with white cheddar and green onion then stacked with a meat like chopped brisket is a pretty substantial dish. We turned it into a boat loaded this way. A hearty meal for sure.

More news…

The happy hour menu got the ax folks. While these dishes are very good we decided to take them off the menu for now. The happy hour dishes are tedious prep heavy items that didn’t have the payoff we expected. Instead, our goal is to have barbecue available until closing time. Do note however, that if we sell out early, the lights are getting turned off early. We will post about it on social media when that happens as an efficient way to let people know the status of barbecue availability. We also welcome your phones calls about barbecue status.

Even more news…

Last week we began serving USDA certified Prime Grade briskets exclusively. We sampled a couple of them the previous week and quickly decided to make the upgrade in beef quality. Everything about these Prime Grade briskets is better. We are excited about it, but wanted to see if people noticed before mentioning this. Boy did you ever notice. The compliments on the brisket were amplified all week. We’re feeling pretty great about being able to increase the quality of our brisket while keeping the price the same. It’s a win win is how we see it anyways. We’re always going to look at getting better at everything we serve.

In the previous post I mention that we’ve been invited to participate at this years Houston Barbecue Festival. The propaganda showed up for us to display. At first I was nervous then realized the list is alphabetical.

Seriously, we are really looking forward to hanging out with some barbecue peers, and to serving festival goers some good barbecue. The poster added to the legitimate feel to our little Craftory barbecue joint. Guys, this is a fun day. There will be ample high quality and interesting barbecue served. Some legendary barbecue joints will be there. If you are thinking of going get your tickets soon. This event will sell out sooner rather than later. I’m Just saying…

Well, the rain did ease up later in the week so I could enjoy a little late afternoon street watching.

That view, a cold beer, and a barbecue sandwich makes for quality time passing. I noticed several parties enjoying the front porch.

Speaking of time passing by, little Noah is 4 weeks old today. His momma and daddy came by yesterday for breakfast tacos and a Micheleda. Noah’s momma can eat some tacos let me tell you. She almost blew off Noah’s socks but they hung in there nonetheless. Those socks sure looked pretty comfy.

Hi Grandad

Aren’t my socks the best

Chocolate inventory is starting to rally a bit finally.

Dark

White

Perhaps we will soon see the return of that banana pudding truffle.

Carrot Souffle’ addict and picture contest winner Stacy came by to claim her prize and to reload on souffle’.

Says she bought two to go for someone else. Keep telling yourself that Stacy. 🙂 We know what the first step is to beating an addiction.

More great pictures were posted this week. Thank you all for doing that. It’s getting harder to decide on a winner for sure. Then I found this one with the deliberate and clever chocolate bar placement.

That is a serious tray of food with a handsome logo in there. I did see where Bryan had some help with this tray of barbecue. Anyways, nice shot Bryan. You are down for $10 on us for your next visit.

One last thing that I’ve been thinking about lately.

Told you that this spring forward stuff has consequences so here goes…

Some people are curious about the name Tejas Chocolate Craftory while featuring barbecue in the cafe. The name seems odd for a barbecue joint to some while many embrace the uniqueness of the identity. Even had one person tell me they thought we were a Mexican candy company, but someone told them we have good barbecue so they finally decided to check us out. And there you have it. Barbecue can transcend all. If good barbecue is sold, people will find it. Good barbecue has no boundary. That and good Tex Mex. Good Tex Mex has no boundary either. I do mean legitimate Tex Mex when you can find it. When you have to ask for corn tortillas you are not at a legitimate Tex Mex place.

I recently came across a top ten list of Tex Mex places written by Robb Walsh who is a qualified historian on Tex Mex. The food genre Tex Mex is in danger of being redefined but that’s a topic for a different day. What caught my eye was that on Robb’s top ten list for Tex Mex is a place in Austin called Joe’s Bakery & Coffee Shop.

Joe’s is speaking our language and they’ve been serving great Tex Mex & Baked goods for 75 years.

Scott:
That is a very good question. Can’t wait to see the answers. People would probably call in sick that day or have a Dr. Appt.
Was good to meet you recently and we will be back soon for more great food. Robb & Cyndi